A Few Screws Loose
by Meilan Firaga
Summary: Fred is dead and not coping well. Peeves is coping even less well with Fred moping at Myrtle's side. Future Peeves/Myrtle because I am apparently not right in the head.


Disclaimer: As per always, I don't own a thing. Wish I did, as that might mean money. XD

This is the first part answer to a challenge on the rarepair_shorts writing community on LJ. The challenge has a table of 13 prompts, which I have decided to write as 13 parts to one big story. The prompt for part one was "well, if you put it that way".

_**A Few Screws Loose**_

_**Part One**_

To say that the ruins of Hogwarts were a ghost town in the weeks following the war would have been a gross understatement. While it was true that the broken castle was still well populated by those who were grieving and yet still determined to rebuild in the aftermath, it was really the ghosts who still seemed to be doing anything that could come close to being called living. Well, most of them, anyway.

Fred Weasley was not adjusting well to the afterlife. In fact, he was so miserable now that he'd died that he spent most of his days hiding in a certain girls' lavatory with the only person he knew for sure was as miserable as he was. Moaning Myrtle had, thus far, been absolutely fantastic. She'd let him hide in her bathroom, helped him keep out of sight of the castle's living inhabitants, and cried with him when he couldn't hold back how sorry he was to be dead any longer. Not once has she chided him for the pathetic shadow of his former self that he had become.

All of this, of course, was only a minor comfort compared to how he felt whenever Peeves showed up.

"Freddie and Myrtle, sitting in the loo," the poltergeist sing-songed, "taking a big, depressing poo…" He zoomed in circles above the cubicle they were camping in, tossing the occasional bit of rubble down upon them and giggling as the pieces fell through them to the stone floor below. "Do you have any idea how utterly boring the two of you have become?"

"Bugger off, Peeves," Fred grumbled. Beside him Myrtle gave a show of patting his hand. This only seemed to enrage Peeves further. The troublemaker adjusted his bow tie—a neon green one today—and reclined on air, a disgusted look crossing his face.

"You're really disappointing me, Freddiekins," he began, picking at his fingernails. "I mean, I should think that you'd be one to take advantage of all the advantages death has to offer. Let's look back on that fantastic prankster history that you and your brother had and think of ways to move forward. Now you can float through walls and turn invisible should you so choose and all you're doing is sitting about and moping in the loo about how awful it is to not be able to grow old and eventually die without the ability to prank for all eternity. Bloody mental if you ask me."

As the poltergeist ranted Fred's face, if it was possible, grew even more pale than it already was. Myrtle looked on, her usual frown growing more and more pronounced the longer Peeves talked and the more sad Fred looked. Finally, she had seen enough, and just as Peeves launched into a tirade of all the things Fred could be doing in regards to girls in the bath she shot into the air to hover in front of him.

"Enough, Peeves!" she shouted, jabbing one translucent finger at him. "You are nothing more than a bully!"

Only momentarily stunned, Peeves floated to a standing position and puffed up. "Well, maybe I like being a bully, Madame o' the Mopes! What do you think of that?" Smirking, he jabbed his own finger back at her and stabbed it straight through her forehead. Myrtle floated back out of his range. Were she to have any color, it was quite likely that her face would have been nearly purple with rage. Peeves decided he kind of liked that particular shade of white and pale in a ghost.

"I think it's pathetic!" Myrtle retorted, her voice taking on the sort of annoyed wail that typically sent students running for the other side of the castle. "People have died in droves and Fred's the only one who stuck around, but you can't even bother to be sympathetic to that because no one is paying attention to poor, little Peevesie and his annoying antics! You've had centuries to do it, so why don't you go and GET. A. LIFE!"

Peeves gaped at her for a moment, his mouth opening and closing in a mixture of what looked to be awe and perhaps even a bit of hurt. "Well, when you put it that way…" he trailed off and paused for a moment before blowing a superbly loud raspberry at her. "I'll just have to float off and find someone who can appreciate that HUMOR still lives when people die." Sticking his nose up in the air, he zoomed away from their cubicle and started a lap around the room.

"Don't mind him, Fred," Myrtle cooed, floating her way back down to him. "All these centuries without a girlfriend have made him very cranky."

On the other side of the bathroom, Peeves growled loudly. "You still have ugly spots on your face Mopey!" he shouted before slamming the door to every cubicle still standing on his way out.


End file.
